Q&A: What Is Cloud Computing?

Question by Lorelei: What is Cloud Computing?
I have to make this short paper about it, but I seem to be having trouble finding resources online.
What is Cloud Computing?
How does it relate to businesses,social world and individuals?
It would be helpful to have reliable resources you can provide.

Thanks in advance.
*Will give 10 points to most helpful person. =D

Best answer:

Answer by Ron HIt is an abstraction of the physical aspects of network, hardware and infrastructure. You get memory, CPU, connectivity without buying or hosting actual iron.

The abstraction is sufficient to provide immunity from hardware failure. The abstraction allows you to scale up power/memory as needed for peak demand or fall back when power is not needed. You can turn it on and turn it off like it was a real computer, and you may pay only when it is on and being used.

You can get a free server in the cloud at Conical for one hour or a free little one permanently using a credit card and an account a lauchpad. It’s Linux and may not be for the beginner.

It is like normal computing but instead of saving the files on a local hard drive, you save it to a non-local hard drive.
It would be good for businesses because you can access the file from multiple places and (assuming the storage location is backed-up) it will never disappear
Social World it would be like storing all your docs, pictures, and videos on facebook
And for individuals I always like to know that I have the file and I know what’s going to happen